3 days ago
Oxford University physicists break world record with 'major advance'
Oxford University physicists have broken a world record with a "major advance".
A new global benchmark for the accuracy of controlling a single quantum bit has now been recorded.
Oxford physicists achieved the lowest-ever error rate for a quantum logic operation with just 0.000015 per cent, or one error in 6.7 million operations.
This record-breaking result represents nearly an order of magnitude improvement over the previous benchmark, set by the same research group a decade ago.
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Photograph of the Oxford University team's ion trap chip. (Image: Dr Jochen Wolf and Dr Tom Harty)
A statement from Oxford University said: "The findings, to be published this week in Physical Review Letters, are a major advance towards having robust and useful quantum computers."
The experiments were carried out at the University of Oxford's Department of Physics by Molly Smith, Aaron Leu, Dr Mario Gely and Professor David Lucas, together with a visiting researcher, Dr Koichiro Miyanishi, from the University of Osaka's Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology.
Co-lead author Molly Smith (Graduate Student, Department of Physics, University of Oxford), said: 'By drastically reducing the chance of error, this work significantly reduces the infrastructure required for error correction, opening the way for future quantum computers to be smaller, faster, and more efficient.
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"Precise control of qubits will also be useful for other quantum technologies such as clocks and quantum sensors.'
The Oxford scientists are part of the UK Quantum Computing and Simulation (QCS) Hub, which was a part of the ongoing UK National Quantum Technologies Programme.
The paper 'Single-qubit gates with errors at the 10−7 level' is scheduled to be published in Physical Review Letters this week.
